Several of the most prestigious colleges and universities in the country pay male faculty on average about $40,000 more than their female colleagues, according to a new analysis by data website FindTheBest.
Four Ivy League institutions -- the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia, Princeton and Harvard -- were among the 10 schools with 50 or more faculty members that had the greatest wage gap between men and women. Duke, the University of Chicago and Northwestern ranked in the top 10 as well.
The biggest wage gap among those larger schools was found at Rockefeller University, which paid male faculty nearly $48,000 more than female faculty. New York Law School came in second with a $44,000 male-female salary difference.
To compile the rankings, FindTheBest used the 2011-12 data from the National Center for Education Statistics, the most recent available.
Franklin Hoke, a Rockefeller spokesperson, said the university cannot comment directly on FindTheBest's analysis because it doesn't know how the data were collected.
"However, our own data show that the average salary for women faculty members is similar to, and actually slightly higher than, that for men for all three professorial ranks, assistant, associate and full," Hoke said in an email. "The perceived disparity you highlight may arise because there are more men than women at the most senior level, a fact that reflects hiring decisions made decades ago and which is not unusual in science. Our small size and exclusive focus on science makes it difficult to draw meaningful comparisons with the other, much larger and more broadly-focused, institutions on the list."
NYLS Dean and President Anthony W. Crowell said they are "committed to principles of equity throughout the institution."
"When I arrived two years ago," Crowell said, "we began to evaluate the entire operation, and we continue to identify areas where changes may be necessary. Compensation is one area that has been under review."
The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, which came in at No. 10 on gender wage disparity, also paid the highest average salary for female faculty -- $271,000. New York Law School and Harvard likewise paid some of the highest average salaries for female faculty.
Another one of the 10 best paying schools for female faculty, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, actually paid female professors over $7,000 more on average than male professors.
This story has been updated with comment from Rockefeller University and New York Law School.